caulfield12

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Oct 7, 2011 -> 07:25 PM) The most amazing thing to me in the Coop interview was right at the beginning. After OG signed his extension, he was asked about his assisstants and, according to Coop, Ozzie said let them sweat. I've been a defender of Ozzie but that's pretty bad, if true. I don't see what, or why, or how, that could be good for a team on any level. OG wuold always defend his coaches publicly as being hard workers, why would he want them to "sweat" waiting on a contract extension? And then all the lip service to motivating the team to finish 2nd instead of 3rd because of the coaches' families and that share would mean an extra $10,000 or something per coach...what a joke.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 7, 2011 -> 04:44 PM) My interpretation of this whole set of boondoggles is that it tells me KW really doesn't have decision making authority beyond a certain point. I think that the Chairman is basically running most everything. KW gives him 2 outlines last offseason, one "All in" and one "Cutting back" and the Chairman realizes that cutting back means Ozzie is gone...so he accepts KW's "All in" outline to try to save Ozzie. That's the only rational reason why I wouldn't have fired KW...if he hadn't made the decisions. And this managerial hiring screams of "you have contracted VDN" to me. The Chairman picked his manager in 04, gave him every opportunity to succeed with his own money, replaced him with another of his guys. And JR really could buy into the dysfunction of the organization being over-ridden by the additions of Dunn and Jesse Crain? Is/was he actually that naive?

Mid to late 2013...the results of "rebuilding" and Ventura's managing will be clear for all to see. Of course, if that's just putting off MORE rebuilding with a new manager and GM, it will suck, obviously. The only good thing that can possibly come of it is high "franchise-player" draft picks that actually succeed and rebuilding the minor league system. If it's just going to be Rick Hahn or someone else (as part of the plan KW prepared with JR the last 2-3 months), then it's silly that KW is the one in charge of it, except for JR's loyalty factor and the "fix the mess that you created" mentality. We'll see if KW really is "Chicago tough" when all of the focus of the media is on him and less on Ventura, because everyone knows who's 100% responsible for the current roster composition. And nobody is really going to expect a huge turnaround right off the bat because of Ventura's lack of experience. How that goes in line with generating revenue/season ticket sales for the Sox in 2012 and 2013...it's not clear exactly. We're hiring a manager who will "grow" on the job while how many times have we focused (and failed) getting off to hot or at least decent April starts the last three seasons???

QUOTE (bozzie @ Oct 7, 2011 -> 02:24 PM) Ah, those that have eyes, let them see . . . . . . I believe it was bozzie himself, yours truly, who spent all summer peeling back the curtains on the Kenny/Ozzie soap opera, and the pawns Ozzie used that were Dung and Rios; it all sprang from Ozzie's demand that Jim Thome be gone'd and Mark Kotsay be DH . . . and it all manifested itself and properly so in the jettisoning of the foul-mouthed, tamale-toting Guillen. Finally. But what did bozzie get for his advocacy? Banned from this board from the overzealous mods. I forgive you, mods. I know it's not easy to recognize the seer within your midst . . . "Advocacy" of what exactly? Second of all, instead of throwing out stereotypical or racist assertions, check out the national foods of Venezuela. Most would consider the tamale a Mexican food first and foremost, particularly because of its roots in the Aztec and Mayan/Guatemalan civilizations. It's really stretching it with the Incas, because they had very little presence in what is now modern-day Venezuela....more Colombia down south through Ecuador, the heart of the empire in Peru and northern Chile. Early Latin American civilizations were warring communities, and the idea of the tamale probably spread with traveling troops. The earliest record of the food is from 5000 BC, although they most likely were around earlier, perhaps as early as 7000 BC. The Mayans settled the modern-day Yucatan Peninsula while the Aztecs developed in the Valley of Mexico where Mexico City is currently. The Incan empire stretched from Columbia through Chile in South America. Function Corn, or maize, husks were first used. With fighting soldiers come very hungry stomachs. At first, women were brought to the war camps in order to make food for the warriors. Traditional meals could not be made quickly enough so the women created tamales. They could be made ahead of time, packed and easily transported, and quickly heated. Read more: Where Did Tamales Originate? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_7460870_did-tama...l#ixzz1a85BmECI

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Oct 7, 2011 -> 03:07 PM) I like this take. Which always goes back to what is considered his (Reinsdorf's) biggest flaw/weakness simultaneously, being TOO loyal. As Cooper mentioned, anyone who worked for an organization like that for as long as he had (26 years) would be "freaking crazy/insane" to want to go somewhere else...coming from someone whose sick, 85 year-old mother could have been minutes away from him in New York if he ended up with the Yankees' job. Ozzie's definitely not going to be given as much rope in Florida. Maybe if he goes back to managing to win and not simply in order to win a battle of internecine cock-fighting with his own GM, he can once again be an effective manager. Greg does have a point there. KW has come across as defensive, disappearing intentionally on a chaotic team when he was most needed and then offering to fall on the sword (for the umpteenth time) for a mess of his own creation. That doesn't inspire much confidence. Of course, he can argue he was trying to hide from the clubhouse/field to prevent further distractions to the team/clubhouse/chemistry, but that rings a little bit hollow. Then again, what he was actually going to be capable of doing to fix things while forced to hold onto Guillen as a manager, obviously a very difficult situation to be in for someone so proud. Which is obviously a large reason he chose to become scarce and was dinged for appearing in places off-the-field while Rome was burning, so to speak. Of course, Billy Beane often does/did the same type of thing. It's cute when the team is winning, it's irresponsible/neglectful when every aspect of the organization you're directing is going south.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Oct 7, 2011 -> 03:33 PM) 1 - Without looking at the stats of every team this year, weren't we close to the top in fielding %? Alexei is elite as SS, Beckham was great at 2B, PK is average at 1B, Morel is above average at 3B. AJ sucks with his arm but can block pitches and call a good game. Rios is supposed to be good in CF and Pierre is coming off a great year in the field and minus his arm he's always been able to cover ground. So the defense argument doesnt really hold. And the pitching has been our strength for a while so not real sure where you're going with that. 2 - You've been saying that forever but you have no idea. You are 100% speculating. 3 - Really? A GM who isn't forthcoming about pending deals/no deals at the trade deadline? Oh lord. None of those really point to KW lieing at all. Not liking him is one thing, and there are very valid reasons for doing so. But calling him a liar really doesn't hold much weight, especially using those "examples" Rios, at least on paper and in reality for most of 2009/10, was an improvement on the often-times horrible CF play we've seen when BA wasn't in there, post-2006. Quentin went through plantar fasciitis and was actually quite a bit better OF this year compared to 2010. Beckham moved off 3B and became one of the top 3 AL 2B defensively. To have promoted Flowers over AJ this season (and not signed AJ) would have been dubious at best if defensive ability was cited as the reason. Pierre wasn't good at all this year, but he wasn't bad in 2010 and was tons better than the first Sox version of Scotty Pods in 2005-06. And how many teams have stellar defensive LFer's with good throwing arms? LF isn't exactly known for that. The problem is we needed more OPS from that position if it was going to be a defensive sinkhole, especially with Pierre losing his speed/confidence on the basepaths this past year.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/wh...ancona-fan.html This is the Cooper interview with the Sun-Times that he referenced in the radio interview that apparently KW wasn't too happy with...but AAL IZ WELL now.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 7, 2011 -> 05:38 AM) I don't see any in between with this move at the very least. Do you mean about Ventura failing/succeeding as a manager (ala Quade on the Northside) or the organization going full rebuilding or going for it yet again in 2012 with a modified "reload"? It seems only about 10-15% of the posters here are expecting anything above $100-105 million for payroll, and that was counting on the idea of Mark Buehrle probably coming back in those projections...at least that if any budget "stretching" was going to be done for 2012, it would be done to keep Mark in the fold.

Would rather have Frank Thomas in this role than the new hitting coach... Singleton was even worse than DJ, and yet he later got a job with ESPN/MLB Tonight. Still miss the likes of Rooney, Hagin and Dave Wills.

http://www.google.com.hk/#hl=zh-CN&new...249&bih=473 Larry Dierker 435-348 (.556) 5 years of out 6 finishing in first place, one fourth place finish That would have been the best argument for hiring Don Cooper as the manager. Jerry Coleman was a complete disaster with the 1980 Padres and is always going to be known more as a broadcaster. And, of course, those Astros teams that Dierker managed had a ton of talent (funny how that usually has more to do with a manager's success---see the Trey Hillman disaster in KC, and reading back on how positive/optimistic Joe Posnanski was when the hire was announced, interesting to say the least). KW has left Robin's cabinet, being optimistic, at best...a glass half full. So, to summarize, Hodges, Stanky, Larry Dierker, Torre (eventually), Connie Mack and Bob Brenly all succeeded with zero prior managerial experience.

A.J. Hinch similarly launched himself from the high dive when he was named to manage the Diamondbacks, and the move quickly cost Josh Byrnes his job as general manager. Hinch, like Ventura, was an intelligent former player with no managerial experience. There have been a lot of different paths taken to the manager's office, and managerial experience hasn't always proven necessary. Gil Hodges went directly from playing to managing, and he was one of the best managers in the last 50 years (to the chagrin of the 1969 Cubs). Eddie Stanky left the Giants after 1952 to be a player-manager for the Cardinals and went 88-66 in the first of his three-plus seasons. (He later managed the Sox for two-plus seasons, finishing above .500 in 1966-67.) Jerry Coleman and Larry Dierker prepped for their managerial careers as broadcasters. Trey Hillman had managed in Japan, but before taking over the Royals was last in a big-league clubhouse when he was a locker-room attendant. Bob Brenly had coached but never managed at any level before getting a chance, and his Diamondbacks won a World Series. If there ever has been a hire as out of left field as Ventura, it was a desperation move by the old Washington Senators. Ted Williams had been out of baseball eight seasons, doing little more than fishing and serving as a part-time instructor for Carl Yastrzemski and lesser Red Sox players, when the Senators hired him to manage. Four years later, he was the owner of a 273-364 record and never again wanted to try that trick. From Phil Rogers' article....no mention of Connie Mack, Torre or Ted Turner

LaRussa had a JD degree from FSU and just a little more than one season as a minor league manager with the Sox...overall, just 1 2/3rd's seasons of experience coaching, after his minor league playing days. Ventura had this recent 1/2 season as the "roving instructor" and clearly wanted a bigger role. The White Sox gave La Russa his first managerial opportunity in 1978 by naming him skipper of their Double-A affiliate, the Knoxville Sox of the Southern League. La Russa spent only a half-season at Knoxville before being promoted to the White Sox coaching staff when owner Bill Veeck changed managers from Bob Lemon to Larry Doby. But Doby struggled in the managerial role and was fired at the end of the season; Don Kessinger, former star shortstop of the crosstown Cubs, was named the White Sox' player-manager for 1979, and La Russa was demoted to manager of the Triple-A Iowa Oaks of the American Association. But Kessinger was not the answer, either. The ChiSox were only 46–60 when he was fired and La Russa was summoned from Iowa, two-thirds of the way through the 1979 season. The White Sox played .500 baseball for the rest of the '79 campaign, and La Russa's career was launched. He credits Paul Richards with first inspiring him to believe he could succeed as a major league manager.

QUOTE (fathom @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 08:14 PM) What's this in reference to? Maybe his quote about being "President" of the organization in the Doug Padilla article just posted?

QUOTE (fathom @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 08:12 PM) No one has answered the most important question: do Ventura's kids have twitter accounts? Question #2, which direction will Cowley take off in with Ventura? Or will he just mysteriously slink out of town like Mariotti...

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 08:11 PM) Oh, condescension. That's new. So if it's so easy, and you're the one making claims that this happens all the time, why don't you Google these managers with absolutely no experience for us? Please, and try to make them in the recent history of baseball. You came up with Joe Torre (35 years ago) and Connie Mack (117 years ago) so far. Let's hear the rest. Ted Turner, lol. Would have been on board with Omar Vizquel as the next manager (my "out of left field" pick) but it seems he's going with Guillen to Florida.

One can only guess that KW had very little to do with this. The majority of our anger should be directed at Reinsdorf...if one is inclined to react immediately in that direction. Obviously JR is the one who convinced Robin to do this...conversations had been going back and forth for a number of years about him taking a more active role in the organization. Obviously, most believed he'd have to "put in his time" before he would become manager. But clearly he works well enough with Bell and KW, as well. Heck, it's not like you've ever heard of anyone not getting along with the guy, he's not a polarizing personality like Fisk or Black Jack.

By Doug Padilla ESPNChicago.com Archive CHICAGO -- Robin Ventura is returning to the Chicago White Sox, accepting a job Monday as a special advisor to director of player development Buddy Bell. Ventura will essentially be a roving minor league instructor, visiting each of the White Sox's affiliates in order to assess talent, work one-on-one with specific players and provide the organization with another set of eyes to do evaluation. More From ESPNChicago.com Can't get enough White Sox information? ESPNChicago.com has all the latest from the South Side. Blog Ventura played 10 of his 16 major league seasons with the White Sox. He won six Gold Glove Awards and was a two-time All-Star. "This is where I wanted to get back into it and Buddy and (chairman) Jerry (Reinsdorf) gave me the opportunity to be more flexible," Ventura said. "That was the part that intrigued me, that I could go for four or five days and be back home. It would have been a different sell if it was (being gone for) six months (straight)." Ventura, who resides in Santa Maria, Calif., will still work as a color commentator for ESPN's College World Series coverage. He will begin working with the White Sox in July. "I watched Robin play for a lot of years and I have a lot of respect for the way he played but also for the kind of person he is," Bell said. "We are looking forward to the relationship. (The role) is going to kind of evolve into whatever. Right now, I'm going to pick his brain. He's going to the affiliates to check the teams out. There will be special guys we want Robin to look at or bear down on. Either they need his help or we want another set of eyes to look at him."Ventura said the time was right for this kind of a position because his kids were getting older. He has three daughters and a 12-year-old son. As for where this position takes him, Ventura says he will think about that in the future. "I have no plans of being president of the team," he said. "This is just a step of getting back within the organization and whatever happens, happens. I'm willing to put my foot in the water and see what happens. I don't really have any thoughts on what the future is. I like to be able to do this within the White Sox organization."

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 07:46 PM) A few things: I 100% agree with fathom. I understand people being unhappy with hiring a guy with no experience, but (I agree with Jason here) I'm guessing that KW identified the problems that existed in the clubhouse and figured that Robin would be a good fit to fix those issues. A managerial job is about looking at matchups, yes, but being able to manage the clubhouse is a much bigger part of it. That's where he'll have to earn his lunch money. I know I always draw everything back to Iowa State, but it's exactly like when they hired Fred Hoiberg as head coach. There are some other similarities, Hoiberg was available for a very "cheap" price, $800,000...whereas Iowa spent a lot more money on the name/resume coach in Todd Lickliter, who actually had NCAA Coach of the Year on his resume while at Butler. However, there's one big difference. The most important thing college basketball coaches do is recruit...and Hoiberg's done a good job of bringing in a lot of talent and leveraging his name/NBA past/reputation/goodwill to do so. Ventura doesn't have that advantage....he's stuck pretty much with the roster he's inheriting.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 07:25 PM) Hey, he coached 7th grade girls basketball for his daughter's team! Oh wait ....MLB players are worse behaved than 12 year old girls. Don "The Bear" Haskins was coach of a Texas girls' high school basketball team and won the NCAA championship. Haskins' coaching career began at Benjamin High School in Benjamin, Texas in 1955. He was a teacher and coach of both boys and girls teams at Benjamin High from 1955-56. Haskins also headed the basketball programs at Hedley (Texas) High School from 1956-60 and Dumas (Texas) High School from 1960-61. Of course, in the movie GLORY ROAD, they made it appear he went directly from coaching the girls team the previous year to winning the national championship the next. In reality, there was a full ten year gap.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 04:27 PM) Experience isn't the most important thing to manage baseball. At least not manager experience. It isn't like NFL or the NBA where you are writing plays and doing tons of stuff. An MLB manager's biggest job is just managing the personalities and the clubhouse. Whether Robin will be good at that, hell if I know. Sure, there are other components to managing (scouting reports to read, etc) but a big part of it are skills that Ventura could have (I don't know whether he does or doesn't). The way to look at this is .... 1) KW has zero control over who the manager is... OR 2) KW is risking his GM career with this move because of the obvious risks of hiring a manager (someone who it will be incredibly embarassing to fire, especially after the way he left the organization the first time)... OR 3) KW already knows he's going to the executive upstairs position in 2013 or 2014. You'd have to think Cooper and Hahn knew/know exactly what was going on behind the scenes or they would both have bolted the Sox. It will be really interesting now to see who the hitting and bench coach are... The thing I don't like is putting a former Sox fan favorite in the position of taking so much heat for the Dunn/Rios/Beckham failures. Obviously, he'll be a bit more boring and bland in terms of dealing with the media. Still, you can't imagine many Sox fans feeling "optimistic" about the move. It's doubtful it will sell any season tickets. Obviously, the team's going to have to show progress on the field and actually be in 1st or close to it in 2012 before a large number of fans will come back into the fold. Part of me feels that KW wants to deflect all the negative attention for the composition of the roster he created by making Ventura something of a sacrificial lamb that most of the Chicago media will be respectful towards because of his reputation as a "great guy" and because of the relationships he built when he was a player. Then again, the "new" media has jerks like Mariotti and Cowley who make a living from tearing down or targeting "heroes" that used to be off limits for so much negativity... At a certain point, Ventura's going to be held accountable for a number of problems which he inherited and has absolutely zero control over...whether that's fair or not, it was probably the trade-off he had to live with coming in as a manager with zero experience. One now wonders how much will be trimmed from the payroll (Quentin, Danks, Floyd, Buehrle, Thornton, Crain and/or Frasor) before Opening Day.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 1, 2011 -> 02:31 PM) I wouldn't call it a win. I'd call it a salvage. You're fishin' for studs that you can build your team around long-term. Not the Sean Marshall's of the world. Especially with our current SP dilemma (majors and minors). If they had picked him in the first 10-15 picks or so in the first round, I would tend to agree. If he ended up like Poreda or Royce Ring, for example. Still, it's going to be a bit of disappointment if he never makes it as a starter, since, as you pointed out, that's the single biggest weakness of our already weak minor league depth. But another example in the past would be someone like Josh Fogg, who was a reliever at Florida and with the Sox...eventually evolving into a pretty high quality starter, enough to start a World Series game.

QUOTE (Crash73 @ Oct 1, 2011 -> 10:58 AM) It was clearly time for Ozzie to go. However, it is and always will be the players fault that they had a terrible season. With the talent the Sox have, a retarded monkey should've been able to manage them to a Division title. Just go back to Thome, when he was here. He was to much of a chump to lay the ball down the third base line, when the shift was on. The Sox players need to play team ball. If they do, then we'll have a chance. Thome was pretty "unselfish" when helping to lead the Twins to the AL Central championship last year when Morneau went down. They never asked him to bunt, that I can recall. Just had better players surrounding him.

QUOTE (alwaysonthesouthside @ Oct 1, 2011 -> 02:39 AM) sorry, i didnt realize someone posted the exact same article earlier.. i didn't mean to do that It's cool, unless you read all the pages in a thread, it's hard to stay up-to-date in "real" time when so many posts are showing up in different threads about similar topics.

That bottom paragraph is the key here. Can Martinez actually instill the "Rays' way" without the Rays' players?? Very hard to pull off if it doesn't pay off in wins and losses right away. In that sense, perhaps Alomar would be better because expectations, for the reasons everyone's been mentioning, would be higher with Martinez, whether that's valid or not, the perception is already developing. Heck, for all we know, Joe McEwing might be better than both Martinez and Alomar Jr.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 30, 2011 -> 12:41 AM) Oh cmon. s***ty baseball players make 3 million a year. We can afford to pay Tito 3-4 million. It's absurd to cite money as the reason for Sandy over Tito. Pay the man. You should write a letter about this to JR. Because it has never happened under his watch with the White Sox in nearly 30 years. Phil Jackson's another story, and yet he ultimately lost out in the end to the "organizational" guy in the front office...just like Ozzie did.